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Greg, methinks those folks come from your part of the world. Keith seems to be confused. He thinks I'm trying to convince people there is no evil in the world when all I did is show him what these two guys think happened in Connecticut. You have to admit that their explanation is very creative. Keith's reaction seems a bit circuitous and disjointed. I wonder what the others think of these guys.

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I hate to say it...but you are foolish if you can't see it. You disagree that a person is given in to despair...someone who puts on body armor, kills 26 innocent unarmed humans, and then turns the gun on himself? What sense is there in that? What was the body armor for?

Atheists have absolutely no answer for the problem of evil in our world. The Christian position is that there is a malevelonce that drives people in an evil direction. It's difficult to argue against this given the evidence, history and personal experiences we all have about it.

The answer to it of course is to imbue in our children, modern folks would say to manipulate the "neuro-plasticity" present in young people's brains, to convince them that they have purpose, that they should resist evil impulses and be aware of their existence, that they are created beautifully by an infinitely loving Creator, and that they should view everyone else with that same attribute. This teaching leads to loving kindness.

The evil forces in our world want to convince us of the opposite, that there is nothing to fear in our world but the material, and to imbue in our children that there is no Creator, that people are purposeless, just bags of water and chemicals with a mind that happened by accident or by chemical reaction in our brains. This teaching leads to despair and sociopathy.

Grandpa Jackboot, you are a twisted propagandist. Why else would you try to convince us that there is no evil in our world with the intent of destroying a philosophy that is centered on love, kindness and respect for a purposeful Creator who wants nothing more than what is in our own everlasting best interest?

The book of Job in the Bible has a purpose. It teaches us rightly that God is truly sovereign. He doesn't create evil, but he allows it. We can't be sure why, but many say it is because it allows our free will decisions, which on the whole, are a net "good" to our overall situation--our existence here on Earth being just a small component of that.

One thing is clear. The DNA information present in us was designed. It is a message to us. We should acknowledge it and move on from there and accept the implications. Let's not deny it and try to blind ourselves to it due to our own sin nature...our own wrongful tendency toward prideful ignorance.

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Keith, I'm a twisted propagandist? When did I try and convince anyone there is no evil in this world? Did I miss something? These guys, Rick and Bubba have figured out what the Connecticut shooting is all about. This is what you sound like to me. You seem to be agreeing with the guy in the video. Is that true? And if not, what part of what he said does not ring true to you?

So far, i have been able to shock Greg and ruin James's computer. And to get you to babble on about "evil forces". What evil forces? How do we know what they are and where they come from? At least Rick and Bubba have it all figured out. Not sure where you stand.

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You can see what I wrote about it at the end. I'm thinking James should upgrade from Windows 95. I didn't get the "Grandpa Jackboots" reference until just now. And yea, I'm afraid that these guys are from the South. Hopefully not Texas but you never know.

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Thanks for the advice GregBut I use an ASUS Eee with Windows 7, it's a tiny little thing about half the size of a lap top.I don't get the "Grandpa Jackboots" reference, but I'm from the northeast. Care to enlighten me?

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PeterI wouldn't say that you ruined my computer. Perhaps your evil motive in posting it rendered the link useless to the righteous (me).Because when I click on your link all I get is the You Tube web page titled "Rick and Bubba on the Newtown Tragedy." no video.So I scrolled down to all their videos, clicked on it, found the one you were referring to, clicked on it and it worked.Praise the Lord.He seeith into my heart and provided... (the video).

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The country's fiscal problem is one of attitudes based on faulty economics turned into faulty economic values that have now seeped into the minds of most in government. Only the younger newly elected members of Congress with the older, more traditional values seem to be free of the bug.

Until the 50s this used to be a nation that was fiscally responsible. Then in the 60s Keynesianism began to take hold and Washington slowly shifted to a fiscally unsound mentally. At first the deficits didn’t matter much because they were kept at a minimal level and they grew only with the size of the economy. Thus during the 60s through the 80s and into the 90s debt in relation to the size of the economy didn’t grow much.

But our Congress people began to get used to the deficits and very soon they began to let them grow in proportion to the size of the economy. In the 2000s that growth began to accelerate and since 2008 it has gone completely out of control.

For some 25 years between the mid-1970s and the 1998/99 financial crises that plagued many countries, emerging economies tried to live with large deficits. They tried every Keynesian trick in the books. They finally gave up on that failed policy and instead around 2000 began to exercise fiscal discipline.

Emerging economies have been doing fine since then. Instead of large deficits they have been accumulating savings, which they deposited mainly in the US. We on the other hand have picked up their bad habits, used their savings to go on a sending spree, had one major crisis, aren’t growing well, and are headed straight for another crisis. We are doing exactly what emerging economies used to do before 2000 that would get them into trouble continuously.

In proportion to the size of the economy and short term, some argue that in the 2000s the deficit was on the way to being brought under control. But that was in part based on the illusory and artificial economic and housing boom and bubble caused by our spending the foreign savings and the Fed's failure to deal with them correctly.

All in all the economic management since the 60s economic management has deteriorated to where today it is nearly blind, in large part lulled by Keynesianism. Maybe Bush's and today Obama's mistake was to not get better economic advisors but one of my points is that practically the whole academy is just as sold on useful but very incomplete Keynesian economics. I predict that history will record that starting in the 60s the whole government fell for a very incomplete and inadequate set of economic theories.

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You argument might be buttressed if you were able to mark the genesis of the problem. It was precisely the 1980's when Reagan cut taxes and began a military buildup which sent a national debt from under a trillion to over 4 trillion buy the end of the first Bush's term. We like to say that the military buildup ended the Cold War. If it did , it came at a price.

What was Reaganomics? Well it was an ideological solution to an economic problem which had largely been solved. It kind of resembled Keynesian philosophy in that it had government take fiscal action to spur growth. But rather than have government micromanage the spending, Reaganomics put the money squarely in the hands of the individual. But it wasn't all individuals. It was those who had paid the most taxes who also were the wealthiest. The government spending multipliers were absent and so was the economic bang for the buck. No one noticed though as a monetary induced recovery was already underway.

Reagan did not make the country pay for its tax cuts nor did he curtail spending prefering to invest in fantastical and failed programs such as Star Wars. Even though proponents say tax revenues went up because of the tax cuts (a questionable notion since again the monetary expansion before the tax cuts is largely responsible for the recovery), Reagan balanced nary a budget and neither did Bush I.

Clinton benefited from the Tech Bubble and did not need overt Keysian action. He also raised taxes and cut military spending. The results. A string of balanced or near balanced budgets and a national debt growth rate that declined through his term. Enter George W Bush who doubled down on Reagonomics with terrifying results. The national debt doubled as he fought two wars and passed an expensive prescription drug plan. Like Reagan, he did not ask the American people to pay for it,

Obama inherited a horrific mess and promptly went back to a modified Keynsian approach. He not only tried to spend his way out of it but used tax cuts to boot. He is trying to impose a Clintonesque tax increase to at least partially pay for the spending. Budget deficits though high in aggregate have either increased at a much smaller rate or actually decreased as was the case in the 2012 federal budget.

Laying this debacle at the feet of Keynes would be ignoring the Reagan/Bush/Bush approaches which were not Keynesian and which appear to be the ones with no particular track record of success.

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Greg, why do you have to make it about ideology when I tried to stick to economics? Why is it that Democrats are always right and Republicans wrong? Why is it that you always run away when I engage you on economics but you then pepper your arguments with it, e.g. multliers, to try to make a case that is entirely wrong but that to the untrained sounds okay rhetorically?

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Xavier,The problem is when does a government stop borrowing money to pay out benefits to its constituents? I think the answer is when no one will lend any more money. But now we have solved that problem by having the fed print money and buy the debt the government wants to sell. Why didn't someone think of that before?

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Zack said................On a related note, I’ve read numerous times over the past few days that gun-rights advocates must stop treating guns as sacred. I get that, because it does often seem like gun-rights advocates will hear no reason and entertain no compromise when it comes to these inanimate objects. ----------------------------------------------Zack, consider the attitude of the pro abortionists considering any tinkering with their sacred opinions. Both mindsets are very similar to religious faith. To be fair, I suppose that both arguments fear the ol' "slippery slop" problem.

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Zach has presented an array of statistics that show that some of the alarm that we have about gun related misadventure is either overstated or just plain wrong. But is that the real case.

As I drove in today, I listened to The Rachel Maddow Show podcast. I don't watch the show preferring to listen to it on my 1 hour 15 minute "jaunt" to work. Maddow really tries to get her facts right. Inevitably after a thorough introduction to a policy issue, she will ask her interviewee if she got it right. On this particular segment, she talked about the success that the gun lobby had in pasing legislation that favored their industry.

Two pieces of legislation that she talked about caught my eye. One was legislation which had withdrawn funding from the CDC to study the results of gun related problems. Here, $2.6 million had been withheld from the CDC budget which was precisely the amount for a study on gun related injuries and death. Another more ominous piece of legislation forbids the ATF from releasing statistics that they compile involving guns and gun related problems. This legislation was passed sometime in the mid 2000's and explains why when doing internet research, the data always seems so dated.

My point is that when it comes to the societal cost of allowing folks to run around with assault rifles, we may not be looking at the full monte.

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Peter said................than pointing out the inanities that get regularly get spewed by the conservatives.....However, since you have thrown your lot with the mindless reactionaries............ Zach with his current military occupation, coming from Texas, and his libertarian views cannot help himself from defending unrestricted gun ownership...... [apparently you have joined the "mindless reactionary group here Zack].... The yahoos on this board ........... it is precisely at these times when we need to come together as a nation [as long as the coming together is performed by the mindless reactionaries]............We have to have mature conversations about what level of hardware is acceptable in a free society [I assume any other view just isn't "mature].......Calling people you disagree with 'idiots' may score points for your 'team' [I have no "team" here Pete, I manage to disagree with everyone, except maybe Nancy whom you have to treat carefully like jug of nitroglycerin.

I composed this post Pete from excerpts of recent posts you made. Do you see how insulting you are to those not on your "team". There is a word used in psychology called "transference". It is when one projects their own inner feelings into others and assume unconsciously that others are just like they.

BTW, I did not call you an idiot, I essentially said that your approach to the subject of gun ownership was idiocy brought on.by political dogma Their are many people, perhaps I should say everyone, though they aren't idiots they manage in one way or another to hold idiotic beliefs. However, through "transference" you perceived I was calling you an idiot when I was not. Why would I do that? I don't think you are an idiot.

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Atheists have absolutely no answer for the problem of evil in our world. The Christian position is that there is a malevelonce that drives people in an evil direction. It's difficult to argue against this given the evidence, history and personal experiences we all have about it.

Keith,

It would seem that no one has the answer for "evil" as you put it. Along with the guy in the video trying to associate the assasination of six year olds with the trials of Job, we have Mke Huckaby opining that the problem is that we took God out of schools. Really ,Mike. How do we puny humans take a superbeing out of anyplace that he wants to be?

In the face of unspeakable tradgedy involving innocent kids , having evangelical clergyman attempt to relate it to some biblical reference never really works. In the story of Job, Satan is not the evil protagonist that evangelicals love to hate. He is more God's prosecuting attorney attemptng to ferret out posturing and hypocrisy. Satan is on a "fishing expedition" and Job happens to be his first target.

Job is not a story of good and evil. It is story of faithfulness and allegiance. The calamities that are visited on Job (including the death of his children) are meant to test his committment to God. But here we have an evangelical minister talking about Satan as a purveyor of evil. He is a "trickster" or "demon" that fools his quarry into doing evil and then has them kill themselves. In this case the quarry is obviously Lanza. The evil Satan didn't happen for several hundred years after Job was written.

But this is what I have said over and over. The object lesson of a good story is twisted to fit some heinous act of a probable madman. In the evangelical world , these things happen all the time. Hurricanes are sent to punish cities. Huckaby thinks taking God out of the classroom let Lanza in. Nevermind that the establishment clause ofin Bill of Rights actually took God out of the classroom.

I ask what good does this do? What morality is being promoted? What lesson are we supposed to learn? A bible story has been retrofitted and shoe horned into a circumstance that it doesn't belong. If anything, it diverts our attention from actionable policies that could be undertaken to an ethereal construct called evil for which there is but one solution which is to accept a particular set of religious precepts.

But more importantly it shows a callous disregard for the victims of a tragedy. They are used to make some religious point by folks that can't even find the right story.

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I don't think you understood the radio host's point about Job, but I'll tell you another incident where our Democrat leaders made fools of themselves using the Bible. After 9/11 two Democrat leaders, John Edwards and Tom Daschle used a verse from Isaiah to sound inspirational. Here's the verse: "The bricks have fallen down, But we will rebuild with hewn stones;The sycamores are cut down,But we will replace them with cedars.” (Isaiah 9:10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns8MDSHqwbc (3:30 minutes)

Here's the catch. The verse is the boasting of Israel at a time of God's judgment. It is about arrogance at a time of judgment. We had to shake our heads at the silly use of this passage after 9/11. Now people are trying to make sense of what just happened in CT. People are saying foolish things on all sides. As usual, you leave no grace for those you do not agree with, and that makes you look small.

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If these guys would have stopped with a verse or two, I wouldn't have thought anything of it even though it may have been taken out of context. But these guys arrange a whole sermon around Job and use Satan to make some point about how he manipulates insame people. This is a clear attempt to show how a shadowy Satan is at work today causing trouble by tricking gullible humans into killing innocent kids. It's an admonishment of the way things are done today.

Edwards may have used a Bible verse out of context. But at least it was positive message. They knocked it down and we'll show them by rebuilding. It's not an indictment. You should tell me why evangelicals "cheapen" the grief of horrific calamity by saying one way or another that it was God's will or God's punishment. I have heard any number of people that believe in God and they don't like it. If pointing out this shameless opportunism and witch doctorism makes me small for calling them out on it , then so be it.

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Nancy, at risk of playing with nitro (not my thoughts) you started by calling Edwards and Daschle fools for not quoting scripture adequately. "We had to shake our heads at the silly use of this passage..."

Then you seem to imply that Rick and Bubba may be foolish but are quoting Job correctly. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. I'm trying to understand your point of view. Keith responded by accusing me of promoting the notion that there is no evil in this world.

I just found a video with an explanation for CT that I wanted him to comment on. That's all.

Now I'm going to ask you. You said Greg didn't get the Job reference. I think I did. But we still don't really know where you stand regarding Rick and Bubba's statements. Do you agree with them or disagree? And what part do you agree with and what part do you disagree with? They are talking the language of fundamentalist Christianity. But I am willing to allow that not all fundamentalists think the same way. Keith, in his own discombobulated way sounds like he's agreeing with them. At least he hasn't criticized any part of their comment.

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To both Greg and PeterAs Nancy said, people are saying foolish things on all sides.I do not agree with Rick and Bubba, I find their opinions lacking and ill-timed. But I am not an Evangelical, I am a Roman Catholic, so my perspective is a bit different.What you two see wrong in their opinion is the nerve to suggest at such a time. And yet you both badger Xavier to commit to a stance before he is ready.People need time to adjust, and there is no difference between Rick and Bubba or Greg and Peter finding cause and insisting on solutions before people have the time to absorb and think thru the problem.Mourn the deaths, get through the grief, and only then debate what needs to be done to end the problem.

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Greg, you talk a lot about it but do you have the answer for how to eradicate evil? I've asked you time and again whether it can all be done from Washington, and if so how, and thus far you have avoided an answer. An answer that doesn't include some utopian la la land solution like empathy genes, or whatever you want to call them, or education on steroids, both of which I doubt are reachable within the lives of even my grandchildren. Talk is cheap. Until you have something better to offer I will default to Judaism and Christianity.

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So Xavier, are we to presume that you endorse the Rick and Bubba explanation for CT? Or are they also engaged in "cheap talk"? What about their explanation for CT seems like something you prefer to "default" to?

I have yet to hear a coherent response from the religious on this board. I offered these two as representatives of a popular point of view and the only one who offered a comment was Keith even though it was somewhat circular and accusatory. You offered a comment to Greg accusing him of promoting some ";la la" land but offered no comment on the people he was commenting on except to vaguely say you agree with Judaism and Christianity.

Now the shoe is on the other foot. I would like to see some concrete ideas from you. Those two gentlemen offered a rather complete explanation for the massacre in CT. Do you agree or disagree with them? It's a simple question. And what parts do you agree with and what parts do you disagree with? If you are going to default to Judaism and Christianity it seems that you could come up with a comment or two regarding a well-articulated explanation involving good and evil, God and Satan.

I challenged the nitroglycerinous Nancy to provide us with her take. Now I am challenging you to comment. And please be specific.

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So far Christianity and Judaism seem to be doing a poor job. I think you want me to say something like "Chairman Obama will fix it all". Well I'm not going to say that.

Eradicate evil you say. What does that mean? What is evil? Is it the personification of negative outcomes? Is it even healthy to think about it that way? How do you eliminate all negative outcomes and replace them positve ones?

So no. Washington can't eliminate evil or all negative outcomes or even most. It may be able to moderate some of them and reverse a very few. But are you sure religion is your best bet. Here you have an anachronistic rule set that you are superimposing on 21st century problems. You got a good look at what can happen when Rick and Bubba tried that. Aside from inept storytelling, it comes off as blaming the victim. Are you sure you want to go there?

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"Those two gentlemen offered a rather complete explanation for the massacre in CT. Do you agree or disagree with them? It's a simple question."

Peter, I'll default to your superior knowledge of what happened in Connecticut.

Otherwise, and for the record, (1) I didn't understand their accents, and (2) if you had been paying attention to what I have said repeatedly you would know that I don't have a clue about what is in the Bible, so I only watched a few seconds.

But as long as I have your attention, how would you eradicate evil? You would also defer to Washington? Is there a place for morality and if so how do we get a SHARED morality? Zach has offered an empathy gene and education on steroids but is not ready to dump Christianity; Greg has offered a harm/benefit calculator but has recently shown hesitation about dumping Christianity (he now says he only dislikes evangelicals); how about you?

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"So no. Washington can't eliminate evil or all negative outcomes or even most. It may be able to moderate some of them and reverse a very few. But are you sure religion is your best bet."

Greg, I don't have anything better. Do you?

As to your two gentlemen, do I have to agree with everybody's interpretation? Have you been paying attention? Do you even understand the Christianity that you have been knocking for nearly two years? What happened to the most fundamental tenet of Protestantism that each individual interprets and is responsible for his or her interpretation of the Bible, all based on a common set of principles?

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That's really saying something after you watched Rick and Bubba in action and then said "most fundamental tenet of Protestantism that each individual interprets and is responsible for his or her interpretation of the Bible, all based on a common set of principles?"

That is supposed to breed consistency. That is why we have hundreds of sects of Christanity. I don't think that I have been quite that inconsistent.

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"Then you seem to imply that Rick and Bubba may be foolish but are quoting Job correctly."

Peter,

The man in the video seems to begin in the middle of a thought about becoming absorbed with oneself to the point of doing evil. He uses Job to illustrate that he understands evil cannot exist except for the fact that God allows it to exist. There's this idea that God and Satan are in some kind of struggle for power, and no one knows for sure who's going to win. Christians understand that's false. God is in complete control. But to understand that is to understand that evil is also under God's control. That's the point the man in the video is making at the outset. He attributes this action to evil, but admits that God must allow evil to exist.

I believe it was David Hume who reasoned about God: "Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" The man in the video is articulating his understanding of why God allows evil, not because he is malevolent or impotent, but he allows it for his own purpose.

The man then warns against putting faith in signs and wonders rather than the Gospel message of Christ, because signs and wonders can be deceiving. I agree with him on that.

He then speculates about why the killer in CT wears body armor even though he intends to kill himself. That's speculation about this incident. I really can't say why this young man did anything he did, including wearing body armor and then killing himself. Where I disagree with the man in the video is that I don't think Satan is the one in control here. I think the young man is in control of his actions and decisions. Whether mental illness played a part of not, I can't say. So I don't attribute all evil to Satan. I attribute it to man and believe man is the one who will answer for it.

The man in the video than reads Romans 1. Romans 1 supports my position. It says that mankind did not honor God, nor retain the knowledge of God, so God gave him over to two things: The degrading of his body, and to a depraved mind. Notice Romans teaches that man is the one responsible for his position before God, not Satan.

Then the man in the video asks a question. If these tragedies are a result of the depravity of mankind because he has left the knowledge of God, what is the solution? Gun control? No. More mental hospitals? No. The solution is to return to God.

Here's the list in Romans: The degrading of the body--"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." The depraved mind--"They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

But this is Romans1. The rest of the letter to the Romans explains how God has made a way for man to return to Him and live in righteousness. And it also tells us not to judge others, because we are the people described here who need God's grace and forgiveness. Romans 2:1, "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things."

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"You should tell me why evangelicals "cheapen" the grief of horrific calamity by saying one way or another that it was God's will or God's punishment."

Greg,

What the man in the video is saying is that God is in complete control. If God is in complete control, then he would have had to allow this incident to occur. Evangelicals are accepting the hard truth and must understand why God allows evil; why God allows good people to suffer; why God allows innocent children to die. If you don't believe in God, then use your time to explain why nature evolved such a flaw in mankind. Either way you want to look at it, you must seek to explain the horrible things man is capable of doing. But please spare me your unending attempts to make Christians look foolish. It gets old. Everyone is well aware you can't stand Christianity.

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That's unfair. I think you see my point but wish to deflect it with ad hominem. It not a question of liking or not liking, It is a question of efficacy. How is anything you have said or that Rick and Bubba said going to help. God is in control and we don't know why he let this stuff happen. Didn't man use to say that about the plague? Isn't this a glorified argument from ignorance.

So when others say that we can't predict when the Lanza's of the world are going off their rockers but we can work to limit the damage that they do, your response is "You're fooling yourself. God is in control". It seems that we have to suffer along with that excuse until someone comes along and proves that man can control it.

That brings us to gun control. Some of are willing to try the Austrailian example. Ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Pay people for the ones that they have. My reading is that since 35 people were killed in the 90's in that countries worst mass killing, nothing like that has happened since. So why can't that work here? Because God is in control? How do you know God doesn't want us to ban assault rifles? He could be sitting up there thinking "Jeeze , I thought they would never think of this. What is it gonna take?

My problem is that Rick and Bubba engaged in a session of blaming the victim. The same thing happened after Katrina. Mike Huckaby joined in with a shot about the Establisment Clause banning God from public schools. I just don't see this as productive. On one side you have humans trying to figure out the Lanza's of the world, correlating the incidence of gun violence with numbers and types of weapons and willing to try to assemble a model that will limit the damage that such events cause. The other side is having some sort of paranoid fit about the unlikelihood of the government slapping us all around because they took away are Bushmaster assault rifles.

They pooh pooh our efforts and conclude with a bunch of homilies about God's will and God's control while making it clear that we are culpable and the only way we can stop it is follow their way. Meanwhile , they offer no solution for the Lanza's of the world. We know that since time and memoriam that these guys have been showing up and wreaking havoc. They are even described in the Bible. I can't believe that you think if we all say our prayers and come back to God that lunatics like Lanza and Loughner are going away. Don't we owe it to the species to try our best to fix the problem ourselves?

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I don't think it's unfair to say you disapprove of the Christian understanding of God and life. Rick and Bubba are looking for answers from the Christian perspective that God does exist and what we must do from that perspective to improve our society. If God exists, then that's very efficacious.

It is not true that it means doing nothing because God is in control. It means looking to God for answers and rolling up your sleeves to do the work. After all, wasn't it Christian Europe that learned about and ended the Plague?

Neither is it about blaming the victim. If that's the case, then you too are blaming the victims by saying they should have supported stronger gun control, or more funding for mental health facilities. Rick and Bubba are having a discussion on how we as a nation need to honor God to prosper. That's a Christian perspective. If you mock that, you mock Christianity.

I never said you can't predict when the Lanza's of this world go off their rocker because God is in control. Those are your accusations, but not my words. Perhaps Adam Lanza may have had a better experience in life had he been part of a Christian community, an intact family, an up bringing without violent video games rather than hidden away in his mother's home. May be if we look to God, he can help us understand a young man like this and how we can love him and make his life better.

I'm not against the government regulating guns. But this isn't all about guns, it's about people and how we can make every person a part of our community and society. Perhaps that's not doable, because people may choose not to be a part. But while you make more and more restrictive laws, why not let us in the Christian community do what we can to reach out to people in the way God taught us? Loving people can be very efficacious.

In my view, every child there had God looking over them. Yes, we've taken God out of schools and fail to teach our children Godly principals. But no, I don't believe God was absent in that horrific crime. Nor is he absent now for anyone who reaches out to him. And my understanding is that many of the families affected by this tragedy are doing just that.

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That's really saying something after you watched Rick and Bubba in action and then said "most fundamental tenet of Protestantism that each individual interprets and is responsible for his or her interpretation of the Bible, all based on a common set of principles?"

That is supposed to breed consistency. That is why we have hundreds of sects of Christanity. I don't think that I have been quite that inconsistent.
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So you insist that I agree with your favorite characters, do you Greg? You really didn't get it did you?

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Pete said... .....but there will be communities where the teachers will refuse to be vigilantes (that's the proper term).....---------------------------------There you have it folks. If someone with a gun had shot ol' what's his name while he was gunning down children they would be a "vigilante". We can't have that sort of stuff in America, better to bemoan the lack of more gun laws and be saintly about it.

OMG, here I am answering Pete. How have I fallen to such a low station? Well, we are all fallible and there is always hope that somehow, someway, we will find a way to improve the human condition.

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: a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law are viewed as inadequate); broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice.

That's the dictionary definition of vigilante. You can quarrel with Webster if you like. I like to use words with their proper meaning. You are the one who said that we cannot have that stuff in America, not me.

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Pete, it is hard to believe that you equate the dictionary definition of vigilante in such a way as to proscribe an armed citizen gunning down the guy in CT. If that was not your intent then what are you saying? Vigilante is a prejudicial term isn't it? We should wait for Obama to ban guns and save us?

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To both Peter and EverettPeter, you are right in the literal meaning of the word.Everett, you are right in the pejorative use of the word.And Peter, based on your obvious point of view, I think in your case, Everett is more right than Webster.

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Pete, there is a right or wrong at issue here. The question is whether someone legally carrying a weapon may use it to intervene in a mass killing without being portrayed as a "vigilante". I do not think such a person would qualify as a vigilante, and you apparently disagree. One of us is right and the other is wrong. Is there a difference between a vigilante and a "concerned citizen"? I think so.

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The above gratuitous comment was not an attack on the logic of my argument. It was made to discredit the argument by simply saying that I didn't like Christianity and therefore everything that I say must be viewed through that lense. If I say something correct about Christianity that is also critical, it is not considered because of comments like these. Nancy has not yet addressed the issue that Rick , Bubba , and Mike Huckaby engage in a form of blaming the victim. I find that distateful and so do other Christians. But because I say it , it somehow it is invalid. I have been critical of Christianity specifically because of instances like these.

But you are correct in one sense, after we got out the 18th century , my problem was more with evangelical Christianity than the other forms. But you don't seem to see that there are rather sharp differences in the forms of Christianity which renders it impossible to make it a one size fits all philosphy. I don't think there are a common enough set of principles that all Christians hold to that you can use that as some sort of social glue. You have Christians on both sides of the gun issue and Christians who loathe guys like Rick and Bubba. So what set of principle do both of sets of Christians hold to that makes the philosophy or relgion or whatever the glue that binds our nation?

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"If I say something correct about Christianity that is also critical, it is not considered because of comments like these."

Greg, you may not have thought so at the time but some of your comments have been so venomous, and your criticisms, perhaps poorly worded but so uncalled for, that you've lost a large measure of credibility. I've warned you about it. Still, people read you so don't complain when they remind you yet again.

As to your Bubba and company, frankly I haven't read you on that because it is just more of the same, so please stop asking me about them. I already wrote that I didn't understand their accent and I don't know the Bible so I didn't watch or listen to them.

But you did manage to inject "So what set of principle do both of sets of Christians hold to that makes the philosophy or religion or whatever the glue that binds our nation?"

That one is quite easy Greg: love and respect, not to mention the Ten Commandments. If just those first two principles alone were followed more widely we would have much more cohesion.

As I've said many times, I've travelled the backwoods of many countries and I can attest from personal experience that those principles are not followed as much as in this country. Unfortunately even here they used to be followed more widely but the practice is slowly being lost. For how people have been losing regard for each other, all you have to do is watch how people talk about their fellow Americans on TV. And please spare me your endless examples of where people failed since I never said anyone was perfect. Notwithstanding the growing number of naysayers and critics, take it from me that you have perhaps the best country in the world when it comes to love and respect.

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GregMaybe you need to pay attention to your posts.You hate Christianity. And it should come as no surprise that Christians see you that way. Your anti-Christian rants are not thoughtful, they are vile. It should come as no surprise that the target can identify the shooter.

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I said this about the false allegation that Christians are blaming the victims:

"Neither is it about blaming the victim. If that's the case, then you too are blaming the victims by saying they should have supported stronger gun control, or more funding for mental health facilities. Rick and Bubba are having a discussion on how we as a nation need to honor God to prosper. That's a Christian perspective. If you mock that, you mock Christianity."

We are all looking for what we could have done better to prevent this tragedy. That's not blaming the victims.

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They point out correctly that from a Biblical perspective God is not the cause of evil, though that is how you and a lot of anti-God folks interpret it.

God is light for our world...human beings, through sin, and even large groups of humans (nations is the word the Bible uses) in their sin, block out the light.

So when Bubba, or Huckabee, or any other Christian interprets bad happenings as being attributable to God, they are simply saying that God is blocked by some form of human sin from shining his light on certain situations. These Christians are just seeking to help guide our society back to "righteous" behaviors in order to solve our society's ills. God has a plan for us, and it involves seeking such righteousness through contemplating His nature and acting accordingly.

I know this is difficult for a materialist to comprehend...A person un-moored from morality will find this impossible to understand, for in a purely material context, there is no good or evil, only chemical and neurological random impulses. There can be no right or wrong in this context. In such a worldview Adam Lanza and his actions are completely deterministic--purely attributable to the chemical-neurological inputs and makeup of his material environment.

So in the end, for the atheist-agnostic secular materialist, human beings cannot be judged for any "immorality." There is no such thing as evil, only a scientific state of being for individuals that must be manipulated and controlled by the masterminds of the collective who are furiously and endlessly seeking to understand human complexity and fix the problems via some material means like social engineering and political control of the individual.

Once again, the god-centered, and the material-centered find themselves at odds on solutions to the world's problems. And the debate goes on. Fortunately for Christians, history proves that it is the atheist types who muck things up, at least from a mass-killing perspective...Bubba, Huckabee and others are on the correct side of the debate in that respect.